


Acting As If

by SegaBarrett



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Beautiful Golden Fools, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 14:30:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20547713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: A proclamation requires that Jaime and Cersei marry, as in the Targaryen tradition, and must navigate this curve.





	Acting As If

**Author's Note:**

  * For [copacet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/copacet/gifts).

Jaime wasn’t sure when he had begun to watch Cersei, really watch her. He had been young, maybe, but it was hard to go back in his mind and separate admiration from the twinge of love-hope-fear that plagued him every time he looked at her now.

The sun was always catching her hair in deceptive ways, ones that made her look like a picture of innocence that she had never been. 

It had been Cersei’s idea to begin to play their games, after all, the way she had smiled and suggested them into his ear as if they were sneaking extra lemon cakes so Father wouldn’t know.

When had that transformed from silly little games that all over-sexed teens play – after all, Jaime told himself time and time again, he couldn’t have been the only one – to something that had taken over his entire life? To where whenever he woke in a bed without Cersei beside him, he felt empty?

It was getting harder and harder to hold a grave face in front of his father, but he managed it.

“The pronouncement,” Tywin said again, “From Aerys is very simple. Brothers must be married to sisters, in their own fashion.”

Jaime looked at him with what he was hoping conveyed some faint sort of horror. He didn’t have to act it, not that much, after all.

Loving Cersei was easy; it always had been. Loving her in front of others was the part that filled him with terror, the knowing. The eyes on them, the feeling that everyone was picturing the things that he and Cersei had been doing the last few years.

But most terrifying at all was the realization that, as he let his eyes drift over to Cersei’s, that she did not share any of the same fears. She was staring at them both stone-faced, as if this turn of events was unexpected, if not welcome. 

She made him shiver when she looked like that, somewhere deep in his spine, near the base of it. 

“It’s not what I had hoped for either of you, of course,” Tywin had continued, “But we cannot afford a war now. Not now. Perhaps in the future, we could…”

“If that’s what is needed, Father,” Cersei declared, “Then that is what must be done.”

Tywin looked at Jaime, who simply nodded. He would not let his voice roam free; it could be a treacherous thing.

***

“Here we are.”

Hand in hand, words spoken to join them together in the eyes of the Seven. The Warrior, the Crone, the Father, the Mother. The Maiden, the Smith, and the Stranger.

There was no point of the Seven for the Brother or the Sister.

“Cersei,” Jaime whispered in his mind, wanting to send her a message. She would be safe with him; he would guard her. The answers were all around them, the luck that they could harness in order to be together at last, even if they had to pretend to hate it. How would they manage that, though? Display hate while feeling love?

Maybe that was what Tywin wanted, wanted him all twisted up the same way he must be. Tywin had lost Joanna – she’d been his cousin, too, after all (maybe he realized, Jaime wondered, maybe he knew what his son and daughter had been up to all of these years and he simply decided to say nothing).

Tyrion, then, Tyrion knew of course. Tyrion was so young – and so little – and yet he saw everything. Jaime wondered if somewhere along the line he had figured out life itself and was only waiting for Jaime to ask.

Maybe he could talk to him, reason this all out. It all felt like too much and Jaime suddenly felt way too young for any of this. Old enough to go off to war, yes, but not old enough to say these words.

Cersei would laugh at him – she was the older one of course, and she always seemed to have the right idea, as if she had been born with a head full of them just like her head of golden hair.

Golden, perfect – how could Jaime act as if this was wrong for the rest of his life? 

***

Cersei had ignored Tywin’s words: this is only temporary, all of this can be undone once enough time had passed, and then he could make a proper match for Cersei. He began to list off names, the type of people that would connect the Lannisters to important alliances.

She wondered when she had lost faith in her father’s ability to play the game, to make the moves necessary to rise to the very top.

But nothing he said sounded like he was even trying to be convincing, and that filled her with an odd sense of relief.

He would be stuck where he was for the rest of time. She had set her sights higher. 

She could remember being seven, eight, closing her eyes and imagining herself on the throne, one leg thrown over the other as she looked down on everyone and made all the decisions. 

Tywin would never again look at her with that gaze of disdain and say, “Cersei, not now. Cersei, you must listen. Cersei, obey me.”

She would be obeyed.

Where would Jaime be, however? It seemed as if he was always at her shoulder, behind her. In the wings, a few steps behind.

Attached to her ankle.

***

“It’s the first time,” Cersei stated, more like commanded, whispering in Jaime’s ear as if someone was watching them even now. 

They would have to pretend – did she want them to pretend? To brush away all those hurried nights together trying not to get caught, hoping no one would ever infringe on their private games and tear them apart?

Did she want him to play awkward, to fumble, to act as if this was something he couldn’t do but had to do for the Seven Kingdoms? His hands began to shake. 

She took Jaime’s hand in hers, clasped her hand around his wrist as if she would never let him go, as if she would always be there to guide him. The pressure almost made him wince; she was crushing his hand. 

Tywin thought Jaime was the one to lead, to be in control.

What a ruse.

“It’s the first. Time.” Cersei’s words repeated, guiding Jaime’s fingers down between her legs, giving a tiny grunt of approval when his fingertips hit home. “But maybe we can make this work. Right here.”

Jaime knew her; inside and out – he knew – 

He smiled and sucked in a breath through his nose. 

“It’s the first time,” he echoed, “…let’s flip a coin.”


End file.
